Alishan

The cherry blossoms are blooming in the mountains and my friends and I took a visit up to see them on Alishan. Alishan is a very famous mountain in Taiwan and all tour busses to the mountain leave from Chiayi. It is actually close enough that you can ride up on your scooter but it would be a rather uncomfortable 2 hour ride so we took a bus instead. Ideally you buy tickets the day before but we aren’t that organized so instead we were stuck in the isle of a mini bus for a 3 hour ride up the mountain. This ride is not designed for sensitive stomachs and I was proud of my friends who made it up the mountain without loosing anything.

It was a beautiful day to be in the mountains. The sun was shining and the air was clear and cool. We wondered around the park taking pictures of the cherry blossoms and going through the cypress forest. The forest was my favorite part. It’s one of those forest that just feels old, the trees are tall and the moss grows thick on the bark. As you step deeper and deeper into the forest most of the tourist fade away and you can feel the depth and wisdom of time gone by. It reminded me of the red wood forest in California and I could have easily spent all day in there if my friends would have allowed me. One of the coolest parts of the forest were all the big old stumps that remained behind. Their was one stump that looked like an elephant and another that was the root system for 3 generations of trees, the oldest dating back 1500 years.

We chose to stay the night and get up early for the sunrise. We had a nice cup of tea under the cherry trees before heading to bed early. We got up at 4am to give us enough time hike to the overlook. The trial was lit and incredibly crowded. Alishan is known for its sunrises and many people come to see it. We were lucky and had a rather clear morning to watch the sunrise. I’ve been told that many times there are too many clouds to see it. To make you feel better about not seeing a sunrise Alishan’s tourist burrow has come up with a clever slogan for the clouds calling them the ‘sea of clouds,’ a must see on your trip, or so they say. We saw the ‘sea of clouds’ the night before and just ended up confused as to what it should really be called. Were they clouds, fog, or just mist? Despite all our debating we never actually came up a conclusion. You can now imagine the type of scintillating conversations my friends and I have.